The City, the Giant, and the River
by Qoheleth
Summary: In which the Endless unwittingly pay tribute to one of the great works of English literature. Happy birthday, John Bunyan.


A heavy footfall sounded upon the tiled floor, and a muscular, red-bearded figure entered the Realm of Dream.

He walked cautiously, almost awkwardly, as though fearing to meet the Lord of the realm even as he sought him. This was an extraordinary sight to behold, for the being (he could not truly be called a man) was of such a formidable stature that it was difficult to imagine another who might inspire him to trepidation; nevertheless, so it was.

"Brother!" he called out. "I pray thee come hither; I would have a word with thee!" But there was no reply, save only the echoing of his voice along the empty corridor.

"He is not here," whispered a low, rasping voice, and the figure turned to behold a second figure crouched among the shadows of the pillars – a squat, nude, obese, and altogether loathsome figure, its form a vile travesty of womanhood.

"Where, then?" said Destruction – for that was, or had until recently been, the name by which the red-bearded figure was known among mortals.

"How ought I to know?" said his companion, whose name was Despair. "Our brother Dream ranges where he will, and no heed does he give to the desires of any other. But tell me, brother: how comes it that the Prodigal, having been so recently estranged from his fellow Endless, comes now to the Realm of Dream to seek an audience with one of the siblings he so memorably rejected?"

"If it comes to that," said Destruction, "how comes it that Despair (who, it is well known, has no love for Dream) should put herself willingly under the dominion of the Fanciful Lord?"

Whereupon Despair said, "Brother, I have asked the first question, and no answer shall I give thee until I have heard thine."

Thereupon Destruction sighed, for he well knew the stubbornness of his sister Despair. "Well, then, I will speak," he said, "but when I have given thee my own reasons for coming to this place, I shall await thy own testimony of thyself."

"So be it," said Despair. "Proceed."

Destruction took a great breath, and began his tale.

"Thou knowest," he said, "that we who are called Endless, being the manifestations of things that neither sleep nor grow faint, are not wont to come under the dominion of Dream. Yet I do swear to thee that not a quadrillion vibrations of the cesium atom ago, as I was sitting beneath a fellimiss tree before the ruins of Teoyahear, lamenting my part in that great city's downfall, I felt my eyes begin to grow heavy, and the next moment I found myself being that which I never was, seeing that which none ever saw, and knowing that which I never learned – all of which I take as faithful signs that it was a dream that came upon me." (Here Despair started suddenly, but Destruction paid her no heed.)

"I dreamed," he said, "that I was a great city: full twice as great as Teoyahear that is no more, but filled with every kind of wantonness and lechery. Such beings as were born in me did lack utterly all those qualities, such as gentleness, courtesy, temperateness, purity, and so forth, that make a mortal a worthy vessel of the life with which he is endowed. Yet one day one of my citizens, by name one Graceless, came upon a book in which these words were written: 'The light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine… His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and Destruction shall be ready at his side.' And again, 'How hast thou helped him that is without power? how savest thou the arm that hath no strength? Hell is naked before him, and Destruction hath no covering.'

"By these and suchlike sayings was Graceless cast into a great agony of mind, for he well saw that, so long as he dwelt within my walls, there was no hope for him. Therefore he betook himself to wandering in the fields that lay about my southern boundary, reading in his book and lamenting the pitiable condition of his soul – and there he might have wandered forever, but that, upon a time, he was approached by another man, a foreigner to that country of which I was a city, who asked him wherefore he cried thus.

"Upon hearing of Graceless's plight, Evangelist – for that was the man's name – asked him, 'If this be thy condition, why standest thou still?' 'Because I know not whither to go,' Graceless replied, whereupon Evangelist gave unto him a roll of parchment and pointed out to him a light that shone faintly in the distance, saying, 'Keep that light in thy eye, and go up directly thereto: so shalt thou see the gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do.'

"So Graceless took the roll, giving Evangelist thanks for his great kindness, and began to run toward the light; and though his wife and children called to him to return, he stopped his ears with his fingers and, with a great cry of 'Life! life! eternal life!', began to run all the faster, so that he had soon left my boundaries; and when he had done so, his name was no longer Graceless, but Christian. Then I awoke, and beheld that it was a dream." And Destruction lowered his head, and sighed.

"But I perceive, sister," he said, "that thou art greatly agitated. Prithee, what might be the cause?" For indeed, Despair, at his last words, trembled so greatly that the folds of her naked flesh quivered like a great and noxious pudding.

"Claimest thou," she said, "that thou hast dreamed of a man called Christian, who left his home and family to seek an inheritance incorruptible?"

Destruction frowned. "No claim is it that I make, sister," he said, "but a true testimony of things that are. What gives thee cause to doubt my word?"

Despair shook her head. "Thou hast mistaken me, Prodigal One," she said. "I do not doubt what thou hast said, but I wonder at it greatly; for as I just now sat on the steps of the Rietspel and watched the great philosopher Thrian a'Safka cut his throat with a chengho blade, I, too, fell into a reverie; and I, too, dreamed of Christian."

Destruction raised an eyebrow. "Indeed?" said he. "Wert thou also the great city, then?"

"Nay," said Despair. "I was a giant in a great fortress, the name of which was Doubting Castle; and I was walking about my lands one Wednesday morning when I discovered two men asleep in my fields. Greatly wroth at this, I bid them waken, and asked who they were and what they meant by this act of trespass; whereupon the elder of the two said that his name was Christian, and that of his companion, Hopeful, and that they were pilgrims on a journey to the Celestial City, but had lost their way in the night. Thereupon my fury waxed even hotter, for pilgrims were odious to me: so I carried them off with me, and put them in the darkest and most noxious dungeon in my castle.

"That evening, when I was gone to bed, I spoke to my wife, whose name was Diffidence, of the two prisoners I had taken, and asked her what I ought to do with them. She advised me to take a cudgel to them and beat them without mercy; and the next morning I acted according to her counsel, flaying the two pilgrims until they lay all but dead on the dungeon floor.

"The next day, when the two of them were recovered somewhat from their hurts, I went to them again, bringing with me a knife, a halter, and a vial of poison, and offered them the use of any of these devices to make an end of themselves forthwith; but, though I spoke with much eloquence on the unlikelihood of their ever escaping my clutches, and on the relief which death brings from the multitude bitternesses of life, yet did those stubborn pilgrims maintain that, for all that, they would prefer to have me release them from my dungeon and let them be on their way. Whereupon my gorge rose in my throat, and I would verily have laid upon them and torn them to pieces, but that I was struck with a sudden fit of paralysis, and lost the use of my hands. Therefore I withdrew from the dungeon, and left them to their own devices.

"That evening I spoke to Diffidence of the sturdiness of those two rogues, and she reminded me of the many pilgrims who had hitherto trespassed on my lands, and proposed that on the morrow I should present the sight of their remains to Christian and Hopeful; and so, when the morning was come, I brought the two pilgrims out from the dungeon, into a castle-yard filled with bones and skulls. 'These,' quoth I, 'were once pilgrims, as you are, and they trespassed on my grounds, as you have done; and when I thought fit, I tore them in pieces; and so within ten days I will do you.' With that, I took them back to the dungeon, beating them all the way thither, and then returned at evening to my wife and told her of the treatment I had given them. 'It is well,' she said; 'yet I fear that they live in hopes that some will come to relieve them, or that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape.'

"Nor was she unwise in speaking thus, for a little before daybreak on the next morning I was awakened by a great creaking from the iron gate of the dungeon; for, during the night, Christian had been put in mind of a key that he possessed, called Promise, that would open any lock in my castle. I rose in haste, and would have pursued the escaping pilgrims, but that a second fit of paralysis came upon me, and I could not move, but only watch as Christian and Hopeful fled my lands and arrived at the King's highway, out of the reach of my wrath. Then, when they were out of my sight, I awoke, and beheld that it was a dream."

When Despair had finished speaking, there was silence in the Realm of Dream for a space, as Destruction reflected upon these things. "It is most wonderful," he said at length, "that we two, who are neither of us wont to fall into reveries, should each have dreamed a part of this man Christian's journey."

"It is, indeed," said Despair. "But since thou art he who knoweth all answers, perchance thou mayest read this riddle?"

"Perchance I may," said Destruction. "It is my opinion, sister, that our brother in whose realm we are now sojourning, hath bestowed a dream upon some mortal being, which is so great and mighty, that even the Endless feel its power. In this dream there is a giant who correspondeth to thy attribute, and a city which correspondeth to the attribute which I have but lately renounced. Thus we two were drawn into the dream, for we are, in some measure, the material of its making."

"It may be so," said Despair. "But if it is so, wherefore have our other siblings not come also to this Realm to seek an audience with Dream?"

As she spoke thus, a curtain stirred further along the corridor, and a tall, pale figure like to a woman stepped forth from the shadows. "One of them hath so come, O sister Despair," said she.

Despair and Destruction turned with surprise and some measure of alarm. "What, sister Death!" said Destruction; "hast thou also dreamed of Christian?"

"I have," said Death. "On the island of Gerair, on the most remote world in the cosmos, I was attending a fiusta lizard in its final agonies when I lapsed into a most wondrous reverie."

"And what form tookest thou?" said Destruction; "for I fancy thou wert neither the great city of the plain, nor the fearsome lord of Doubting Castle."

"Thou hast spoken sooth, O prodigal brother," said Death. "In my dream, I was a great river, which had flowed since the beginning of time before the gate of the Celestial City. None could enter that blessed city lest they passed through my waters, save only two men whom the King of that place had, in olden times, suffered to enter through a hidden path; yet those who forded me found the going easy or hard, according as they trusted in the King's promise.

"Now as I dreamed, behold, two pilgrims arrived at my banks, accompanied by two men whose raiment shone like gold; and the two pilgrims were that same Christian and Hopeful, whom thou, sister, afforded such grievous trials. When they beheld my depths, and the swiftness of my current, and finding no bridge or ferry to help them across, they were struck with great fear; yet, for that they preferred Jerusalem above their chief joys, they betook themselves to dive into the depths of my waters.

"Now whereas Hopeful's feet touched my bottom directly he entered me, Christian had no sooner left the bank than he began to sink, and cried aloud to his companion, 'I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head; all the waves go over me, selah.' And though Hopeful urged him to be of good cheer, yet he would not be comforted, but began in frenzy to bewail his sins, and to deny that the gates of the Celestial City should ever be opened to such a wretched man as he; and he would verily have drowned in me by reason of his own woe, had it not been that Hopeful, with much ado, sustained his friend's head above my rolling waters.

"'Ah, brother!' said Christian then; 'surely if I were right, he would now arise to help me; but for my sins he hath brought me into the snare, and hath left me.' Whereupon Hopeful put him in mind of the place where it is written of the wicked, 'There are no bands in their Death, but their strength is firm. They are not troubled as other men, neither are they plagued like other men.' And Hopeful continued, 'These troubles and distresses that you go through are no sign that God hath forsaken you; but are sent to try you, whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses. Then be of good cheer; Jesus Christ maketh thee whole.'

"Then, behold, the King of the Celestial City did by these words of his brother's open Christian's eyes, that he might again behold his countenance and trust in his promise, and that the enemy might torment him no longer; and thereafter my waters were made shallow to Christian's feet, and in a little he and Hopeful had reached the farther shore. Thereupon they met the two Shining Men whom they had left on the nearer bank, who saluted them and said, 'We are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those that shall be heirs of salvation.' Thus they led them away towards the gate of the City, telling them of the inexpressible glory that there awaited them; of the tree of life from which they should eat, and of the white robes they should be given; and how they should gaze continually upon the face of the Holy One, and with him should judge men and angels, and should be ever with him. Then as they passed over the hill, I awoke, and beheld that it was a dream."

When Death had finished relating her dream, neither Destruction nor Despair could find any words to answer her. There was therefore silence for a time in the Realm of Dream, till a footfall on the marble stair heralded the arrival of its Lord.

When the Lord of Dream entered his realm, it was clear (though his countenance changed not) that he was greatly amazed to find his three siblings awaiting him in this place, that to them was so foreign. "Hail, brother Prodigal," he said; "and thou, younger sister of mine, and thou, my elder. But wherefore come ye three to my abode? for it cannot, sure, be a place of good comfort to you."

Then stepped forward the Lady Death, and spake. "Brother," he said, "hast thou of late given a dream to a mortal, the which concerneth a City of Destruction, and a Giant Despair, and a River of Death?"

"I have," said Dream. "In a small and vile prison on the third world of the star Sol, a captive preacher is even now making a romance of this dream. What of that? Think you that I have transgressed in your dominions by speaking of them in my own? If so, then I am an obstinate villain indeed; for many before the captive preacher have dreamed of Destruction, and many of Despair, and many indeed of Death."

"Nay, brother," said his sister, "we fault thee not for thy work this day; yet we wonder what manner of work it may be, for that we, too, have dreamed it along with the captive preacher."

"Indeed?" said Dream. "That is most wonderful; yet it is not strange. Our brother Destiny met me in the Solish prison, and gave me praise, saying that the dream which I had there given was set to do a mighty work among the peoples of that world; and when I said that I knew nothing of this, he replied, 'Nay, of a certainty thou wouldst not; for thou hast not chosen the dream, but its Maker hath chosen thee. Yet know that thy fruit shall remain; and wherever in the universe the name of Jesus Mary's son is spoken, and mortals strive to enter into his kingdom through the narrow gate, the pilgrimage of Christian shall be to them an aid and a consolation. And many shall enter thereby into glory, which would otherwise have been cast into outer darkness.'

"Well, then, if the dream be so great in its effect, it is scarcely to be marveled at that it should affect those of the Endless whose dominions are figured therein. For if there is joy in heaven over one who repents, as it is said, shall there not be transportations in the realms of the Endless over a vehicle through which so many repentances shall be effected?"

And Death bowed low. "We are answered, brother," she said. "We beg thy pardon for having trespassed upon thy realm, and thy leave now to depart."

"Go," said Dream, "and may ye well and faithfully execute your charges (I am not speaking now, brother, to thee). I trust I shall shortly see you; till then, peace be to you."

Then his three siblings departed, and went each their separate ways.

Yet oftentimes thereafter, in moments when they were truest to their inmost natures, Destruction would be put in mind of a great and worldly city, Despair of a cruel giant, and Death of a broad, cold river; and then they would remember their dreams and the tale their brother told, and would wonder whether they that dwelt on the third world of Sol yet remembered the captive preacher's tale of the pilgrim Christian. Then, in the silence of their souls, the answer would come to them, and they would cry–

_O wondrous dream, what glory is not yours,  
Heard even on Gerair's most distant shores?  
So long as mortals strive, by all their arts,  
To please the Lord, shall Christian's tale move hearts.  
Yet seek not after men's, but Christ's acclaim,  
And bring what souls you can to praise his name._

* * *

**Disclaimer:** _Sandman_ belongs to Neil Gaiman and DC Comics. _The Pilgrim's Progress_ belongs on the recommended-reading lists of most of the colleges in America, but, for some reason (possibly related to the last couplet of the above poem), only a handful of them have actually put it there. Oh, well. (As for the picture, that's from a Yorkshire Television adaptation of Bunyan's book. Quite good, too.)


End file.
